SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.–With two weeks remaining until the regular season, the Giants appear ready to pencil catcher Buster Posey into their Opening Day lineup.

Beyond that, much of what the team can expect from Posey this year remains a mystery.

“I’ll have to watch him early in the season,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “We don’t want to grind him in the early go. We’re not going to be able to.”

Nearly seven months after undergoing surgery to repair his right hip, Posey is on track to catch Madison Bumgarner in San Diego on March 28. Whether he’s physically prepared to play back-to-back games is still in question.

“I don’t want to set anything in stone,” Posey said Tuesday.

After completing an intense offseason of rehab, Posey is on track to open the season on the 25-man roster. How much he can play effectively and who the Giants select to back him up are two of the most pressing questions the team must answer.

Posey began catching in games two weeks ago, giving him a four-week period to prepare his body for the rigors of a 162-game season. During the offseason, Bochy remained optimistic Posey would be able to catch a normal load of about 110-to-120 games this year, but new president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi indicated the Giants would back off of such a rigorous schedule.

At the midpoint of his spring, Posey hasn’t caught consecutive games yet and he remains uncertain whether he’ll be able to do so during the first days of the regular season.

Posey said he’s been encouraged by the way his surgically repaired right hip has responded to catching in Cactus League play, but noted that he’s experienced some general soreness. The Giants planned for Posey to serve as the designated hitter in Sunday’s game against the Rangers before holding him out for precautionary reasons.

“He’s pretty much been on the plan,” Bochy said. “We did make one change, he was going to DH and we backed off because of some tightness there.”

Even after playing through pain for much of last year, Posey’s decision to undergo season-ending hip surgery in August was not an easy one.

Delaying an operation until October likely meant Posey would not be ready for Opening Day in 2019, but waving a white flag and skipping the final month of the season was hardly the signal Posey and the Giants wanted to send.

The franchise player ultimately opted to to cut his season short with an eye on returning for the club’s opener against the Padres.

The five innings Posey caught in Tuesday’s win over the Brewers marked the most time he’s spent behind the plate this spring. The Giants will give Posey a day off Wednesday before he returns to catch again Thursday. Bochy said the team plans to ramp up his schedule over the next 10 days, but it’s possible he won’t catch a full nine-inning game until the Giants meet the A’s in the Bay Bridge Series exhibition games.

“We don’t know how he’s going to respond or bounce back after catching back-to-back nine-inning games yet,” Bochy said. “That’s yet to be seen but we’re hopeful that we’ll cross that bridge right before the season starts. We don’t know yet.”

Aside from monitoring how Posey handles his catching duties, the Giants are also keeping a close eye on how Posey feels at the plate. He reported that pain prevented him from firing his hips while swinging during the second half of last season, which led to a decline in power numbers and a few bad habits.

Posey is just 2-for-13 so far this spring but is optimistic his approach at the plate will improve when he’s able to see more consistent at-bats.

“The main thing I’m working on right now is to get back to a more consistent load,” Posey said. “That kind of went away last year so that kind of plays into the rhythm and timing of things.”

A lifetime .306 hitter, Posey’s average dropped to a career-low .284 last season. The more concerning number for the Giants was the dip Posey’s on-base plus slugging (OPS) took, as he finished the year with a .741 mark, 99 points under his career average.

Surgery was expected to restore Posey’s ability to drive the ball, yet it’s too soon to know how a lighter workload and a cleaner bill of health will impact his swing.

Kerry Crowley is a multimedia beat reporter covering the San Francisco Giants. He spent his early days throwing curveballs in San Francisco’s youth leagues before studying journalism at Arizona State University. Kerry has covered every level of baseball, from local preps to the Cape Cod League, and is now on a quest to determine which Major League city serves the best cheeseburger.